


Falling Apart

by 10sunking



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 10:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5286659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/10sunking/pseuds/10sunking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would happen if Eren didn't have any legs?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Just seeing if anyone is as curious as me.

His legs were gone, and pretty soon Eren thought he would be too. The battle between humans and titans raged around him as Hannes carried his smaller body to the boats that were escaping the slaughter. His mother was next to him, screaming with tears streaking down her face as he willed himself to stay conscious. 

"I should have never let you go," she cried. 

That's right. He was starting to remember. His mother had gone to find him with his adopted sister Mikasa after he'd gotten angry with her and ran off. He'd come back home while they were gone and that was when a giant boom shook the ground. Eren had run outside to see what it was, but the house had collapsed on top of him.

He couldn't feel his legs after that. Struggling to get out of the debris, he'd noticed his mother and Mikasa running toward him just as a human-looking giant with a wide set of teeth bent down to reach for him. 

Hannes, a guard for the wall meant to block these giants from humanity, had appeared out of nowhere. He'd charged forward to take on the titan and save Eren, but an up-close view of the monster had stopped him cold. He turned around and pushed Mikasa and his mother ahead of him, away from Eren, totally afraid.

"Don't leave!" he called out, struggling even more against the giant beam pinning him down. The titan reached down and pulled off the roof of the house, scooping Eren up into one of its giant, meaty hands. 

His mother heard him, and shot past Hannes to get Eren. 

"I'm coming," she screamed and grabbed one of Hannes's swords that hung at his waist with his omnidirectional gear. 

She was running fast, screaming, and with each step she came the titan squeezed Eren tighter. He was running out of breath to warn her. 

"Wait," he wheezed out. Any closer and the titan would grab her. 

It was too late. She was beneath the titan as she arched her back, leaped, and swung the sword right for the knuckles of the titan, or at least where the knuckles would have been if it hadn't decided to righten itself from its leaning position and stand. 

Instead, Eren felt a strange ripping sensation from below his knees like the stitches in a shirt being torn off. He looked down to see the terror in his mother's eyes, and the remains of two legs bleeding on the ground. 

A scream erupted from his chest and he blacked out, only to wake up in hell. There were more titans now, and the tips of their heads could be seen over the tops of the buildings. Screams were coming from everywhere around them, mixed with his mother’s own screaming. 

“Doctor! We need a doctor!”

Hannes was shoving past people in the line for the boat. 

“This boy needs medical attention,” he told the guard letting them on the boat. 

The man took one look at the makeshift bandages covering Eren’s bleeding stumps and shook his head. 

“It’s too late. He’s already gone. Make some room for someone who will need it,” he said. 

His mother grabbed the man’s collar and drew him close to her face. She had Eren’s blood splattered all over her face. 

“Is he dead?” she asked him.

“No, but-” 

“Then it’s not too late. He goes on the boat.” 

He stared at her for a moment, not wanting too, but the people behind them began to shove them forward. Hannes muscled past the guard who turned away, giving up, and handed Eren to his mother. 

“I’m going back,” Hannes said and then grabbed his mother by the shoulder. “I’m sorry Carla. I shouldn’t have-it shouldn’t have been you to rescue him.” 

She shook her head. 

“It’s not your fault. Go, and be safe. I need to get a doctor,” she said and spun Eren around heading into the crowded deck.

As she took him between crowded bodies, Eren’s last view of his home, Shiganshina District, was in ruins just like him. Right then and there, he decided to make a vow. Eren kept his gaze toward the sky where the titans devoured his world. 

“I’ll kill them all,” he screamed. 

“Eren,” Armin said, trying to calm him down. 

His mother found his friend Armin and Armin's grandfather and they both tended his stumps the best they could. Armin stepped between Eren and the view beyond. Eren wanted to get up and walk straight toward the railing and scream at those monsters that just kept taking and taking from him. If only he could move. 

His mother and Armin’s grandfather were speaking in urgent whispers, but they couldn’t hide anything from him. He was right there. 

“It won’t stop bleeding,” Armin’s grandfather said. 

“Just keeping putting more bandages on it. Mikasa, find someone, anyone, that can help.”

Mikasa nodded and hurried away. 

Eren could feel himself getting weaker. It was getting harder to breathe, to focus on anything around him, and his mother kept tearing off strips of emergency blankets and pushing them onto the messy pile of bandages. He wouldn’t let those stupid monsters beat him though. He screamed to keep himself awake and filled with purpose. To kill. 

“Please Eren, calm down. You’re making it worse.”

He gasped then, trying to catch up on all the air he lost screaming. His mother stroked his forehead. 

“Listen to me, breath. I’m going to get us through this, but I need you to rest, okay.” 

Time passed, Mikasa brought a man who’d had experience tending animals, and with his help they cauterized Eren’s stumps until the blood stopped pumping out. 

After that, it was like whatever strings that had been keeping his mother up were cut off. She collapsed on top of him, enveloping him in her arms and crying into his hair.

“It’s all my fault,” she said.

“No it’s not,” was his furious reply. She laughed.

“Why can’t you listen to me for once.”

It was the last thing she said to him months later when all the refugees that weren’t crippled or children had to leave the shelter of the second wall and go back and fight all the titans. No one expected to survive, but there wasn’t enough food for everyone to live, so his mother and Armin’s grandfather left Eren, Mikasa, and Armin on their own. 

Eren had wanted to go with her so bad, he dragged his body in the dirt to follow her, but she gave him one teary kiss and went off. Then she disappeared, the titans claiming her as well as his legs, and that’s when Eren started falling apart.


End file.
